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| MALLORCAN SCHOOL (active during the middle of the 17th Century)
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| Still life with Pomegranates and Grapes in a Basket, and Still life with Apricots in a Porcelain Dish, Cherries in a Glass Dish and a Basket of Root Vegetables and Grapes
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Oil on canvas, a pair
Both 37 ½ x 29 ¾ in. (95.1 x 75.7 cm.)
In Europe during the early to mid seventeenth century the production of still life painting increased dramatically and this relatively new genre quickly established itself. While the Netherlands undoubtedly provided the most important influence in the development of still life painting, the form, arguably, took on an identifiable national identity within other European countries, particularly in Italy and Spain. The often quite pointed messages and motifs used in Netherlandish painting were not such a prominent feature in Southern Europe where the subject matter was inspired by an interest in natural history or theology, however, with time, still-lifes became appreciated for their intrinsic beauty, their imitation of nature and a decorative suggestion of abundance and, of course, as proofs of the artist’s skill as a painter. In his brief but influential article on Italian still life painting, Roberto Longhi credited Caravaggio with the invention of “modern painting” in the early seventeenth century and with his elevation of the otherwise lowly genre of still life, citing, as a paradigm, Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit, c. 1596 in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. Caravaggio’s influence was not only seen in Rome but further south in Naples, particularly in the work of Luca Forte (as in the Still Life with Cherries and other Fruits and Still Life with Apples and Pears, on octagonal canvases in Museo Duca di Martina, Naples) and Pietro Paolo Bonzi and Agostino Verrocchio who both worked in Rome and Naples; however the extent to which his influence conditioned the development of still-life painting in Spain or Spanish still-life painting developed independently, is debatable. Various characteristics of Spanish still life painting, which are evident in the Colnaghi pair of still-lifes, were introduced by Juan Sánchez Cotán and subsequently popularised by Juan van der Hamen y León, Juan de Espinosa and Tomás Hiepes. For example, Juan Sánchez Cotán subtly plays with variations in light and shadow to create an illusion of space and heighten reality (see Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber, c.1600, San Diego Museum of Art). Also, detached, stepped still life compositions occur throughout van der Hamen’s work, for example (see Still life with Flowers and Fruit, 1629, Lila and Herman Shickman Collection, New York and Still Life with Fruits and Birds, 1623, Patrimonio Nacional, Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid.) The Colnaghi still-lifes employ these qualities; an arrangement of fruit piled almost on top of each other on a stone slab and the artists’ careful attention to detail is seen in the masterly rendition of the various fruits and their crisp outline, and, with particular reference to the second of our pair the various fruits have been compartmentalised and the overall composition is not complex. Both works are set against a dark background encouraging the viewer to focus on the luminosity of the fruit.
The Colnaghi pair belongs to a small, coherent group of still lifes produced by a distinctive, but as yet unidentified artist, working in Mallorca in the mid-seventeenth century. Other examples by the same hand include A pair of Still Lifes sold at Sothebys, London, July 2002, Lot 213 and a pair of paintings in the Masaveu Collection, Oviedo (see Colección Pedro Masaveu, Floreros y Bodegones, exhibition catalogue, Oviedo, Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias, July – Oct. 1997, pp. 50-51, cat. nos 20 and 21). Common to all the paintings in this group share are the selection of objects and fruit– typically the artist uses delft ware bowls and other baskets and the scene is characterised by a bird, sometimes pecking the fruit. The anecdotal inclusion of birds in still life painting may refer back to the story of a rivalry between Greek fifth century painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius which had been a popular topos with artists from the Renaissance onwards. The story, reported four hundred years later in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, notes that a contest was staged to determine which of the two was the greater artist. When Zeuxis unveiled his painting of grapes, they appeared so luscious and inviting that birds flew down from the sky to peck at them. Zeuxis then asked Parrhasius to pull aside the curtain from his painting. When it was discovered that the curtain itself was painted on the surface, a trompe l’oeil feature in Parrhasius' painting rather than a real curtain, Zeuxis was forced to concede defeat. Many of the works attributed to the Mallorcan School were traditionally, although erroneously, associated with the work of enigmatic Blas de Ledesma, although more recently, Alfonso Pérez Sánchex, amongst others, have pointed to their probable origins in Mallorca, where a number of series of these paintings remain intact in local noble houses (see Natura en repós, exhibition catalogue, Palma de Mallorca, December 1994, nos. 6-21).
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P. and D. Colnaghi and Co., Ltd - 15 Old Bond Street London W1S 4AX, United Kingdom Tel: +44-20-7491 7408 Fax: +44-20-7491 8851 contact@colnaghi.co.uk
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